Let me be clear from the beginning: you need a way to remember your valuable thoughts. Don’t under-estimate how valuable they are. And, give yourself a chance to develop them.
There are so many ways to do this. At a recent meeting, I sat between two innovators; we all had different ways to remember our thoughts. I had a notebook and pencil. The girl beside me was typing notes into her phone, which enabled her to take photos and tag them with those notes. I envied this. The guy on the other side was using a dictaphone, and occasionally speaking into it like he would if speaking to a friend sitting beside him, which is why I asked him, “excuse me, are you talking to me?” But he wasn’t.
No doubt you could add to the list of ways to remember your valuable thoughts and take notes.
What is important here is to have a way to remember. I have very poor short-term memory and forget valuable things very fast. So, I carry a notebook with me at all times. Especially to the toilet. Even to the shower, where I have had many creative and valuable thoughts!
This practice allows me to remember things and work on them later. Which can lead to new work. Which can change the world. This is how valuable all this is!
However, I find one type of notebook the most valuable of all. It is called the commonplace book. These books are not singular in use, like a recipe book, but broad so they can include all of life, all the little things that I value and have paid attention to. I use mine to remember everything from quotes to drawings to holiday maps to prayers to notes to recipes to designs for a back shed. I also have a new one every month, which allows me to go back and search through them later on. I then take these notes and thoughts and develop them later into other work.
The beauty for me is that as I look back through them, hunting for a recipe I have lost or a thought I had about echidnas, I also find maps of my hike around 3 Capes in Tasmania, and a drawing I did while waiting for Tiff. (see photo at header).
They are a way of journaling that helps me remember that work is mixed with life, and life is not just work. They remind me of the ways God has walked with me over the years. They remind me that good things have happened, which I often need to be reminded of. They help me find balance.
There are many ways to do them. The method is irrelevant. The practice is the valuable part. Find your way and use it. Let me know how you go.
